Battleship
New Member
Hello all:
I am trying to help a local high school out with their rocket car race day - they want to re-do their setup so that they are drag racing two rocket cars at the same time.
I was thinking it might be cool to build them a drag race staging-tree, and possibly even add a elapsed time counter and display to reflect total run time from start to finish of both cars. I was hoping to adapt existing L.E.D. circuits to drive larger high current flood lamps via opto-isolator coupler ICs and TRAIC drivers. Unforetunately, I have not seen any circuits that will perform the functionality I am looking for.
The pre-stage lights (amber)will be manually triggered via a simple momentary contact switch. These lights will stay lit for approximately 5 seconds, then triggering the staging lights (amber) which will light and stay lit until the operator triggers the start of the race (all rocket engines have been connected to their power supply and waiting for ignition spark). when the operator presses a START switch, the LED staging controller needs to light the LEDs in a pulsed pattern down the tree, staying lit for approximately 1-2 seconds each, until the final green "start of race" light is lit. The same pulse that is used to fire the green start-race LED will also initiate the triggering of the rocket engine power supply, firing the engines and sending the cars down the track. A IR LED trans/rec at the head of the track will be triggered and the elapsed time counter will start counting up, in 10 milisecond incriments, until the IR LED trans/rec pair at the end of the track stops the running clock, freezes the display until manually reset. I think most race enthusiasts get the idea. I had developed a pretty neat design for my boys scouts a few years back, but am unable to locate it now. All aspects of the circuit will be reset to their initial or default starting condition via a reset switch. Any suggestions or ideas on where I could obtain schematic and parts list info for such a project?
I am trying to help a local high school out with their rocket car race day - they want to re-do their setup so that they are drag racing two rocket cars at the same time.
I was thinking it might be cool to build them a drag race staging-tree, and possibly even add a elapsed time counter and display to reflect total run time from start to finish of both cars. I was hoping to adapt existing L.E.D. circuits to drive larger high current flood lamps via opto-isolator coupler ICs and TRAIC drivers. Unforetunately, I have not seen any circuits that will perform the functionality I am looking for.
The pre-stage lights (amber)will be manually triggered via a simple momentary contact switch. These lights will stay lit for approximately 5 seconds, then triggering the staging lights (amber) which will light and stay lit until the operator triggers the start of the race (all rocket engines have been connected to their power supply and waiting for ignition spark). when the operator presses a START switch, the LED staging controller needs to light the LEDs in a pulsed pattern down the tree, staying lit for approximately 1-2 seconds each, until the final green "start of race" light is lit. The same pulse that is used to fire the green start-race LED will also initiate the triggering of the rocket engine power supply, firing the engines and sending the cars down the track. A IR LED trans/rec at the head of the track will be triggered and the elapsed time counter will start counting up, in 10 milisecond incriments, until the IR LED trans/rec pair at the end of the track stops the running clock, freezes the display until manually reset. I think most race enthusiasts get the idea. I had developed a pretty neat design for my boys scouts a few years back, but am unable to locate it now. All aspects of the circuit will be reset to their initial or default starting condition via a reset switch. Any suggestions or ideas on where I could obtain schematic and parts list info for such a project?